It will be a strategic victory for Microsoft if they can ink the deal having lost tremendous a lot of ground to Google for the past years. I m not surprise that Google may counter offer to prevent Microsoft from making the purchase and this would be another huge win for Google and another smack in the face on Microsoft.

Facebook is a great product and it needs the great people behind it to continue making better development and frankly Microsoft isnt that company that will take Facebook to another level but the acquisition will definitely strengthen Microsoft's ad platform on its search engine.

The discussions are still preliminary and Facebook could end up not taking any investments from either Microsoft or Google as Facebook may value themselves higher than what Microsoft and Google would pay for. Its afterall Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to continue to build the company and eventually take it public.